covered walls

I started a tumblr a couple of weeks ago, inspired by that of a friend. She posted the link to her facebook, and I was struck by the vibrant, beautiful images she had amassed. They screamed out happiness and pure delight, which is something this friend of mine radiates. I immediately felt drawn to pool together images I loved. sure I have a facebook and a pinterest and a blog. But this new forum could be just for pictures, for putting things there I may need to look at on a bad day, or during a coffee break at work when I'm tired. It's amazing what kind of little impact an image can have on you.

Anyone that has ever visited a room of mine would have experienced my love of images. My first real room to myself was in the little red house on the lake in Westford. When my sister left for college I was a sophomore in highschool, and I got to expand to the other side of our attic room. The ceiling walls met at a point barely above my standing height, and sloped down to the ground. We slept on mattresses on the floor, had pull out drawers to attempt to organize our clothes and the ceiling was split into 8 sections by wooden paneling. Sometimes I still have nightmares about cleaning that room, but most often, I think about the hours I spent arranging and re-arranging pictures on those walls. I could use tacks, so I was constantly re-doing the entire thing, having a whole panel of artwork I did at school and another with quotes I loved, another with pictures of these friends and then these other memories. I had trinkets and beads and glittery sun-catchers hanging in front of my windows, dried bouquets of roses hanging from the very center of the room.

That bedroom was my sanctuary, and I exploded my teenage thoughts, emotions, and confusions onto those walls.

The same pattern took place with my decorating in college, perhaps a little more toned down by purchases of nice posters and gifts of framed family paintings. My room definitely had the least blank wall space of the majority of my friends.

I'm moving into my first apartment next Wednesday and I'm excited to think about all those blank walls.
This time, there will be no tacks or scotch tape. No gummy sticky stuff that was never supposed to stick to the walls when you removed the poster at the end of the year, but always did. My friend gave me a toolkit in an orange case when she left college, and I intend to use it. I'll frame the images that means the most to me, and hang them, level them. Maybe move them around a bit until the feng shui is just right.

It feels more grown-up this time. Maybe I am growing up.

Or maybe spending so much time updating my tumblr is going to give me more ideas than will fit on my walls.

We'll see.